Ryo Okumoto (奥本亮, born May 24, 1959) is a Japanese rock keyboardist, best known for his work with

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

group

Spock's Beard Spock's Beard is an American progressive rock band formed in Los Angeles. The band was formed in 1992 by brothers Neal (lead vocals, keyboards) and Alan Morse (vocals, guitars), John Ballard (bass) and Nick D'Virgilio (drums). Ballard was r ...

. He joined the band in 1996 and has been a member ever since. When singer and keyboardist

Neal Morse Neal Morse (born August 2, 1960) is an American singer, musician and composer based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1992, he formed the progressive rock band Spock's Beard with his brother Alan and released an album which was moderately successful. ...

was in the band, Ryo played

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

and

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

on the albums. Since Morse's departure, Okumoto has played all of the band's keyboard parts. He resides in Los Angeles. Aside from his work with Spock's Beard, Okumoto has performed and recorded with numerous other artists and groups, including

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

, K²,

Phill Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 an ...

Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is often regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s list of ...

, and

Asia featuring John Payne Asia featuring John Payne is a British–American rock group band formed in 2007 following a schism in the lineup of Asia. The band is a continuation of singer and bassist John Payne's career as the band's frontman, which lasted from 1991 unt ...

. For three weeks in 1998, Okumoto was a member of Eric Burdon & the New Animals, before being replaced by

Martin Gerschwitz Martin Gerschwitz (born 25 June 1952) is a German violinist, keyboardist, singer and composer. Life and career He was born and raised in Solingen, Germany. He began playing piano at the age of five, at the age of twelve he devoted himself exclu ...

. Okumoto was a member of Eric Andre's house band on season 5 of

the Eric Andre Show ''The Eric Andre Show'' is an American surreal sketch comedy television series which began airing on May 20, 2012. The show premiered on Adult Swim and is a parody of late night talk shows. The series is hosted by comedian Eric André and forme ...

. In 2019, Ryo joined the progressive rock supergroup cover band, ProgJect.

Discography

Spock's Beard

* '' Beware Of Darkness'' (1996) * '' The Kindness Of Strangers'' (1998) * ''

Day For Night Day for night is a set of cinematic techniques used to simulate a night scene while filming in daylight. It is often employed when it is too difficult or expensive to actually shoot during nighttime. Because both film stocks and digital image s ...

'' (1999) * '' V'' (2000) * ''

Snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

'' (2002) * ''

Feel Euphoria ''Feel Euphoria'' is the seventh studio album by American progressive rock band Spock's Beard released on July 8, 2003. It was the first album the band recorded following the departure of vocalist/songwriter Neal Morse, also the first full-length ...

'' (2003) * ''

Octane Octane is a hydrocarbon and an alkane with the chemical formula , and the condensed structural formula . Octane has many structural isomers that differ by the amount and location of branching in the carbon chain. One of these isomers, 2,2,4-Tri ...

'' (2005) * ''

'' (2006) * '' X'' (2010) * '' Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep'' (2013) * '' The Oblivion Particle'' (2015) * ''

Noise Floor In signal theory, the noise floor is the measure of the signal created from the sum of all the noise sources and unwanted signals within a measurement system, where noise is defined as any signal other than the one being monitored. In radio com ...

'' (2018)

Solo

* ''Makin' Rock'' (1980) * ''Synthesizer'' (1980) * ''Solid Gold'' (1980) * ''Coming Through'' (2002) * ''The Myth Of The Mostrophus'' (2022)

K²

* ''Book Of The Dead'' (2005) * ''Black Garden'' (2010)

GPS

* '' Window To The Soul'' (2006)

References

External links

*
Spock's Beard official websiteProgJect website
People from Osaka Prefecture American musicians of Japanese descent Living people 1959 births Japanese keyboardists Japanese emigrants to the United States Spock's Beard members Inside Out Music artists {{US-rock-musician-stub